He Writes to Survive Life. He Writes to Live

A Review of I Am Too Young to Be This Old by Thomas Plummer

Screenshot by the author

When I read Thomas Plummer’s poetry, I am struck by a fundamental tension in the way he approaches life. On the one hand, there is an almost insatiable desire to seize life, experience as much as possible, enjoy whatever pleasures are still within reach, and never let an opportunity for happiness slip away. On the other hand, there is a persistent awareness that none of this can change the fundamental conditions of human existence. Time passes, the body grows older, and death awaits us, no matter how intensely we live.

But perhaps it is misleading to see this as a contradiction between the joy of living and resignation. Perhaps they are two sides of the same existential awareness.

Plummer does not seem to pursue pleasure because he believes it can free him from mortality. Rather, it may be precisely because he is so acutely aware of the limits of his own life that he insists on enjoying it while he can. The fleeting nature of our pleasures does not necessarily make them meaningless. On the contrary, it may be the very knowledge that they cannot last that gives them their particular significance.

Here lies a paradox that, to my mind, gives his poetry a deeper meaning: Human beings can know that…